I was in a dilemma many times to support Arvind or not but given his committment and personal sacrifice I was willing to trust him as a common man. However a series of gaffe, a rigid – ‘my way or highway’ approach, an unplanned agenda with only one focus i.e, to be in the driving seat, has convinced me that he is not the solution and infact he is at best a roadblock.

When one thinks big and thinks for a holistic change he cannot remain unprepared and without agenda and ask for opportunity to govern. The ideal of Swaraj may have been an worthy goal but without an action plan to achieve it, it is another lolipop like Ramraj. Arvind may have had right intentions (although today I am not fully convinced about it as well) but never had a clear thought process which has lead him to make several U turns. He should have been clear right from the begining on what he had wanted. If it is good governance then he should have executed that when he got oppportunity to govern. If it had been the change in system then he should have done a proper homework. No doubt that he was not having enough powers and he even did not have the status of a full CM that other state’s CM enjoys but the choice was his own. When he choose to make Delhi as his launching pad he should have thought about what will be his delivery milestones and how will he achieve it. He had done no homework. I also found that criticism valid that he had actually leveraged on the movement of Anna and Ramdev.

It must not be forgotten that the founding movement of IAC had Baba Ramdev at its forefront followed by Anna Hazare. Both April and August 2011 by Anna and 9th August 2012 movement of Baba Ramdev were remarkable and had pulled huge number of people on the roads. During August 2012 also Arvind had ensured that Anna and Baba do not jointly launch the protest on same date. I had asked this question in the NRI conference call that when Anna has announced that both Baba Ramdev and IAC will fight for change together then why the protest movement is starting on two different dates. I did not get a convincing answer. When after 4 days they unconditionally stopped the protest without consulting Baba Ramdev they had almost gave government a boost to their morale and put at risk any future movement for change. Had it not been the charisma and committment of Baba Ramdev, his protest was settled before it even started.

True that Arvind has shown an exceptional level of committment. But for what – power ? There were other committed and honest individuals who had the same committment and ability such as Anna, Ramdev, Kiran Bedi etc. They were rather doing a practical planning to bring change by encouraging / pushing the less corrupt establishment. BJP for example was pushed by Kiran Bedi during Aug 2011 to break the deadlock. Khanduri of BJP even accepted to implement Janlokpal in toto in Uttarakhand. BJP had shown a willingness to support the cause and by mobilising public pressure BJP could have been forced to support fundamental path breaking out of the box decisions.

Further while I agree that most of the times political opponents try to slander image by raising unnecessary and irrelevant issues but hasn’t Arvind himself has brought him to that level. What evidences he had before he blamed Modi for Muaffarnagar riots. His ticket selection process is 100% based on same factors that other political parties adopt i.e., cast / relegion based. Further his ticket selection process or direct democracy in his party is just a mockery as all decisions are announced in advance and further only ratified by the party. For example Kumar Vishwas’s announcement to fight from Amethi to several other bigfaces whose names were announced first and ratified later.

What Arvind should have done is to join and help the forces of change and fight the battle together. Argue and adjust with other points of view but stay together. Mobilise public for issues and leverage on the existing setup of less corrupt political parties. Goal should have been to make change in system and not to be in Governance.